So you don’t like the Republican Party of John McCain?

Republicans. The Stupid Party. The Party of John McCain, Lindsay Graham, and John Boehner. The Party that believes in implementing the Democratic Platform, just a week or two more slowly than the Democrats, and they’ll reduce spending not by making government smaller but by making it “more efficient”.

You’re mad. You don’t want to ever support Republicans again, right?

Let’s start a Third Party!! That is a loser of an idea. Just ask President Al Gore what he thinks of the Green Party. Or two term President George HW Bush about Ross Perot.

Third parties are the dumbest ideas since the idea of feeding cake to French peasants. The absolutely accomplish something, they allow for the election of the least desirable candidate of those supporting the third party.

On the conservative side of the spectrum a third party would have no elected officials anywhere. The Socialist Party has more elected officials in the US than does all center-right non-Republican groups, and they have one – a city council member in Seattle.

In addition, a third party would have no ballot access in any state and no money. Oh, and did we mention, no candidates with any kind of name recognition.

Other than those little thingys a Third Party is a shoo-in.

Then there’s the “If I can’t vote for a ‘True Conservative” I’m staying home.” Those are the folks who defeated Mitt Romney. Now we’re not big fans of Mitt for anything but a good neighbor, but if anyone tells us that he wouldn’t be a phenomenal improvement over the current occupant of the Oval Office had better duck. If you believe that, you’re irreparablely stupid.

So, what do we do?

Well, we can do what some acquaintances of mine have done here in Arizona. You take over the State Party in your state, and you get a chance to do this with elected officials who are sell-outs in your state.

Delivering a strong rebuke to U.S. Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republicans passed a resolution to censure the one-time presidential nominee for what they characterize as a liberal record that has been “disastrous and harmful” to the state and nation.

While McCain is a political star on the national stage, for years he has had to contend with vocal critics in his home state, who accuse him of betraying the Grand Old Party’s principles.

Saturday’s censure came two weeks after the Maricopa County Republican Party passed a resolution to censure the senator on a 1,150-to-351 vote.

McCain and his ilk will say that “censure doesn’t mean anything”, and they’re absolutely right, in terms of substance in 2014. It would be embarrassing if McCain gave a damn about Arizona Republicans or even Arizona citizens. He doesn’t, he lives inside the beltway in a condo his very wealthy wife bought him. He comes back to Arizona only when he absolutely has to.

Nothing can be done to move Senator McCain to the right, and he can’t be removed from office short of retirement or losing an election. US Senators cannot be recalled.

Come 2016, if McCain thinks he might want to run for reelection, he will find himself in a situation where he doesn’t have the support of the Republican Party in Arizona in the primary. That will make a difference. He won’t have access to any of the things that incumbency provides with the exception of out-of-state money and he’ll have lots of that, he always does. He’ll face commercials showing every elected Republican in the state – with the possible exception of Jeff Flake – endorsing McCain’s primary opponent and talking about what a shameful old fool McCain is.

If you’d like to make a difference in your state, you can start working within the Republican Party to take over your district committee and your state party for conservative values. It’s hard work but it’s not difficult.

Precinct Committeemen (PC) are the people who actually run the party. They are the people who make up the voting contingent of the Republican Party on all party issues. Nationally, over half of the PC positions are vacant and a plurality of the ones that are taken are occupied by McCain-Chamber of Commerce Republicans who push the Party to the left.

Become a PC, recruit your conservative friends to be PCs and you can be part of what’s happening here in Arizona. We all loved the Tea Party rallies where hundreds of thousands turn out to demonstrate for conservative values. As it happens, a thousand or so conservatives can have a much bigger impact on the direction of the Republican Party and the nation by becoming PCs.

You need to be involved. You CAN be the difference.

Some people are taking a lesson from Arizona’s conservatives. In Lindsay Graham’s home state of South Carolina, the Spartanburg Tea Party is on the case. If you follow the link, you see what’s happening in Graham’s back yard.

You can find out how to move your state to the right. Check out The Precinct Project for details on exactly what you have to do in your state. Check out their Blog for specifics on the Projects along with some great videos.

So, we’ve said all that to say this. Get off your couch. Find out what you need to do to become a PC in your state. Your kids and grandkids are depending on you.

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About The Author

Michael Becker is a long time activist and a businessman. He's been involved in the pro-life movement since 1976 and has been counseling addicts and ministering to prison inmates since 1980.Becker is a Curmudgeon. He has decades of experience as an operations executive in turnaround situations and in mortgage banking. He blogs regularly at The Right Curmudgeon, The Minority Report, Wizbang, Unified Patriots and Joe for America. He lives in Phoenix and is almost always armed.

Tregonsee

The Canadian Conservative Party is a good model. Decades ago it imploded, and was recreated in the style of the western provinces. The name remains, more or less, but it is a “new” party without the problems of being a Third Party.

Charles Harkins

The parallels of what happened with the Reform Party (the real conservatives) and the Progressive Conservative Party are relevant to the Republican Party of today. The split was supposed to guarantee that the Liberals would rule forever. It sure did look that way at first. Today, Reform and the Conservatives are back together and Stephen Harper who was once a Reform Party star is now Prime Minister.

jim_m

It takes longer, but the road to success is to slowly take over the party from within like the CPUSA did to the democrats.

Lawrence Westlake

The chances of getting the so-called “Tea Party” demographic off the couch and actually participating in the local apparatuses of pure politics, rather than mugging for the cameras at televised photo ops, only are slightly less than the chances of getting all the inherited trust fund money out of Scottsdale. The other numbingly obvious problem with the whole purge the Rockefeller wing of the party strategy is that whereas that sort of approach might have bona fides in a British or Israeli or Canadian-style parliamentary system it’s self defeating to a point of self-parody in the U.S. system, which as Sharron Angle might figure out some day is two party only, winner take all, with a pluralistic federal republic as the framework, and a vast, heterogeneous populace and voting electorate. Truth be told at this stage of the decline there’s really nothing that can be done. Democrats won’t stop voting reflexively for Democrats. The more we decline the more people become dependent upon Uncle Sugar, which creates more Democrats. And the purge and burn crowd on the right and putative right are going to do to the Republican Party what Protestantism did to Protestantism. C’est la vie.

Constitution First

If the TEA Party is such a non-threat, why waste so much of your energy disparaging them? Thou protest too loudly.

Drancis

I know. Such a long-winded essay on a meaningless movement. You should work for the alphabet networks.

Alpha_Male

Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t there precedence for the rise of a 3rd party when overwhelming factors lead to a complete impasse where there is no more room for compromise?

Wasn’t the Republican party started when Free-Soilers and anti-slavery forces combined to replace the Eastern industrialists who controlled the Whigs? It seems that the current leadership of the Republican party is controlled by analogous politicians, milk-toast men and women solely interested in compromise and maintaining the status-quo.

It seems we are that type of cross-roads again. We have to decide if were going to be a European type state controlled by Socialist/Fascist, big government or one based on individualism and small government. We seem to have reached the moment of no more compromise and the need for a political movement to encompass that ideal seems to be here.

Am I wrong, if so please enlighten me.

JWH

Wasn’t the Republican party started when Free-Soilers and anti-slavery forces combined to replace the Eastern industrialists who controlled the Whigs?

A couple key differences between then and now:

1. A political party becomes an institution with its own traditions, identity, etc., only after the passage of time. The Whig Party of the 19th century was active only from the 1830s to the 1850s. It lacked real institutional strength.

2. Both the Whig and Democratic parties divided along regional lines over the slavery issue. The split was not ultimately fatal for the Democratic Party, but it essentially destroyed the Whigs. This bit is crucial. The Republicans rose as a national party only after one of the existing two parties had destroyed itself.

Compare this to today.

1. Both the Republican and Democratic parties are broad-based coalitions. Each has existed for a century or more, each is entrenched in the existing power structure. Neither of these parties is likely to fall any time soon.

2. Today, no issue divides the parties like slavery did in the 19th century. Yes, there is a wide-ranging … ahem … debate on such things as abortion, same-sex marriage, tax rates, and so forth, but the debate has largely broken along party lines. Neither Republicans nor Democrats have manifested a faction that might split off from the main party (taking votes with it) over these issues.

jim_m

Not only that but the two parties have solidified their hold on the electorate by crafting federal election laws that all but eliminate the possibility of a third party rising.

warnertoddhuston

The only way a third party could work is if it kills and replaces the GOP to become only one of two instead of a third party.

http://wizbangblog.com/author/rodney-graves/ Rodney G. Graves

A third party that gained 25% of the House and Senate would be a real factor.

Hank_M

I do what I can in Mass but conservatives are so outnumbered it isn’t funny.

I think WTH is right. The GOP as it stands, has got to go.

I have a feeling that once they sign on the the democrat version of illegal immigration reform, that deed is as good as done.

warnertoddhuston

That’s how the GOP did it to the Wigs, after all. They did it in about 4 of 5 years.

Par4Course

Republicans are a minority party in part because, unlike the Dems, they spend way too much time attacking their own. J.D. Hayworth tried to challenge McCain in the 2010 AZ primary but got beat by 2 to 1. The same will likely happen if McCain runs again in 2016 and gets a conservative challenger. There is great power in incumbency (see Exhibit 1 – Barack Hussein Obama). In 2010, “only” 85% of congressional incumbents were reelected, nearly an historic low.

As for the idea that conservatives abandon the GOP, the US decline has a better chance of being reversed by extraterrestrial aliens than by a new political party. (Just ask Presidential hopefuls John Anderson and Ross Perot.) A third party is the liberals wet dream – another way to splinter the anti-Dem vote. Bill Clinton, who never came close to getting a majority of presidential votes, would never have been President if it weren’t for candidate Perot. If there were a serious conservative 3rd party effort, I might vote for its candidate but I’d bet my house on Hillary winning in 2016.

Michael Becker

You have no clue what you’re talking about with respect to Hayworth. I live in Arizona and I know him – not well, but I know him.

JD wore out his welcome in a center-right leaning district where no Republican should ever lose. He was a blowhard, more media conscious than even McCain. He also was no conservative on the floor of the House. He was fiscally fairly liberal, and never really met a problem government couldn’t solve.

He lost in 2006 to a lefty Democrat who was mayor of Tempe, a left wing college town in metro-Phoenix (home of ASU). JD’s constituents just couldn’t stand the sound of his voice anymore and they threw him out. He ran in 2010 against McCain primarily to pay off his campaign debt from 2006.

Hayworth is absolutely hated by the local media and he’s such a bad candidate that they don’t have to actually print/broadcast negative stuff, all they have to do is give him air time. They did, he imploded.

Maricopa County, where his old district is, is the reddest part of the state. He got pounded here, not because anybody loves McCain, rather because JD is hated more than McCain.

There are a couple of solid candidates for 2016 who have statewide name recognition and now that the State GOP has declared against McCain, they’ll endorse the opposition and McCain should be gone. He won’t get any support in the southern part of the state where he walked the Mexican border and said “Just build the darn fence” in 2010.

2016 will not be a rerun of 2010.

http://www.wizbangblog.com David Robertson

” . . . the US decline has a better chance of being reversed by extraterrestrial aliens than by a new political party. ”

Now that you mention it …

EdmondWherever

I, for one, welcome our new alien overlords….

Drancis

Just like communism, party comes first. Vote the party at all costs even if it is voting for my own enslavement.

Par4Course

Not voting for the Republican, as in 2008 and 2012, was voting for the enslavement of the country. If you think McCain and Romney were worse alternatives than BHO, you are delusional. No matter who gets the GOP nomination in 2016, he/she will not be perfect and will still be a hell of a lot better than Hillary, Joe Bite-me, or whomever else is carrying the Donkeys’ banner.

Vagabond661

I agree. We don’t need a third party. We need term limits.

Paul Hooson

A pretty good sign of fractures in the GOP are up to three planned Republican responses to the SOTU address on Tuesday. If this proves true, then the GOP is a badly fractured party with little likelihood of pulling together enough voters to win the presidency in 2016. Further, as nonwhite voters grow as a group, the GOP will find some states like Texas, Georgia and Arizona in play in future years, along with Virginia and North Carolina, proving a declining GOP electoral vote base to win a national election, without a single large electoral base in the GOP camp.

Hank_M

“then the GOP is a badly fractured party with little likelihood of pulling together enough voters to win the presidency in 2016.”

I see little evidence that the GOP wants to win the presidency. They’re more concerned with being liked by the dems and the MSM (BIRM). But three SOTU responses? They’ll probably attack each other. And no one will be watching anyway.

http://www.traveLightgame.com/ ljcarolyne

Mr. Dictator thinks he has all the answers, just wait. Anything Obama does is a failure from the get go. . . why? Obama is a counterfeit plus a waste of time and money. No one trusts a word out his Godless Muslim mouth. Not going to listen to Obama’s stupid blaming speech as to why things just haven’t worked, blah, blah, blah, broken record. McCain is no different – big fake failure.

Constitution First

I will not willing tie the knot in my own noose. I would far rather “waste my vote” on a third party than vote for another Scott Brown or John McCain. who will not vote my values. Ask the Whigs who said voting Republican was a wasted vote.